The Carus Chronicles

To say Kristy from Blush Wedding Photography "did" my head-shots, would be a gross understatement. She created them with an artistic flare that still leaves me feeling quite pretty. Yes, the pictures are me, but through her many lenses, she saw the BEST of me and brought it forward. She's one talented photographer. I struggled to narrow my selection down, but here are my favorites. I'm still flip-flopping with which ones to use for social media, my website, and my books. Maybe you can help. Which ones do you like? For more information on Kristy and Blush Wedding Photography: Website:  http://blushweddingphotography.org/ Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/blushweddingphotography?fref=ts Twitter:  @blushwedphotos

Just call it a penis! I have to start this post off with a disclaimer: I grew up in a small coastal community, am a biologist and have worked on fishing vessels as a government representative. I've heard every name in the book for male and female genitalia and am fairly desensitized to the wide variety of labels, including the more crass and less savory ones. But unless you plan to lick it off, why sugar coat it? A penis is a penis, after all! Maybe it's the biologist in me, but when I'm reading a sex scene, I find it amusing when the writer has seemingly gone out of the way to avoid the dreaded P and V words, or even the commonly used slang terms. Second disclaimer: These aren't so much as pet peeves, as they are points of hilarity for me. The top two labels for male and female genitalia respectively that throw me into fits of giggles are: 1. Velvet Covered Steel 2. Inner Goddess As a writer, I can appreciate how difficult writing a sex scene is, and how yo...

I like Young Adult Novels. They teleport me back to an age of innocence and possibilities. Along with TV cop shows, singing along to Miley and Brittney in the car, and eating chocolate, reading YA is one of my not-so-secret guilty pleasures. My pet peeve with YA's is the inevitable scene where the culmination of teenaged angst and playing hard to get results in the main character swooning into the arms of the handsome bad-boy love interest and losing her virginity to him. Now let's be honest, these books are fiction. They're not realistic in many ways, including the intuitive nature of seventeen year old boys, but the area I find them most unrealistic is in the bedroom. The deeply knowledgeable and skilled love interest will ruthlessly demolish the innocence of the main character...and she'll LOVE it. Some, the sensitive and considerate boys, will briefly pause and ask if she's okay, but the scene will predictably result in him jackhammering his way to the ...

One of my biggest pet peeves as a reader is seeing a line where a character at some point "tastes bile." because he or she is confronted with something that grosses them out, or is so grotesque they are nauseated by the idea or sight.  It's often the ultimate expression of supreme disgust, only to be one-upped by actual vomiting. Reading this description repeatedly for one or more characters throughout a book is what really bothers me. It's not normal to constantly be tasting one's bile. Here's why: Bile is an emulsifier. It is produced in the liver, stored in the gallbladder, and released into the upper section of your small intestine (called the duodenum) to break down fats into smaller fats. It is extremely bitter tasting and the vapours from excessive bile secretion can travel to the mouth for you to taste. In order for it to do so, it has to travel through TWO sphincter muscles (the pyloric and the cardiac), which act as one-way gates, the highly ac...

Legalities first: I am in no way a lawyer, and this is in no way legal advice and I should not and cannot be held accountable for the information I provide in this blog post. You are responsible for ensuring the information you submit on a government form is accurate and true. Phew! Now, if you want to skip the beautifully written personal account of how and where I got this information, you can download the basic steps I followed here . Now for the story. As I'm going to be published by an American publisher, and I'm Canadian, I need to apply for an International Tax Identification Number, or an ITIN. To apply for an ITIN, I need to fill out a fairly straight forward one-page form and provide original proof of my citizenship and identity. My passport conveniently meets both of these requirements. I have four options for submitting my passport as proof. Send it in the mail to Texas. (Not happening) Apply in person at an IRS Tax Payer Assistance Center and have ...

My debut novel, Shift Happens , is due out sometime in the Spring of 2014. Probably April-ish. I don't have a set release date still, but I want to be as successful as possible. My publisher recommends a long list of things I can do to help promote my book and me as an author. These are the ones I have already completed: Website (  http://www.jcmckenzie.ca ) Blog (duh!) Use taglines on all blog posts (check) Facebook ( http://www.facebook.com/j.c.mckenzie.author ) Twitter (@JC_McKenzie) Post tweets automatically to Facebook (check)  Make a newsletter (I use Mailchimp, and I've tested it. First one due out Dec 15th) And then there's the one's I haven't completed: Post tweets automatically to your website (I'm not sure about this. Seems overkill?) Get people to sign up for your newsletter (how?!?) Create an online press kit (seems like I need a lot of the other things on this list first) Make a video book trailer (I covered my current succe...

E.E. Cummings dedicated his book of 70 poems, “No Thanks” to well, ‘No Thanks.’     Some argue that rejection is a part of the writing process. Personally, I've always felt rejection hinders creativity. Each and every single time I got my ‘No Thanks’ email from an editor or agent, my will to write and my fragilely accumulated self-esteem would wash away with my tears. So when an editor replied to my full manuscript with, “yada, it’s great, yada, yada BUT …” I braced myself for the inevitable sting of rejection. And it was there. But she returned my manuscript lightly edited and gave me two pieces of advice. Remove as many passive verbs as possible – was, were, could, should, would, etc. She mentioned an easy way to eliminate most ‘was’s is to change ‘was <>ing’ verbs to ‘<>ed’ verbs.  For example: He was walking à He walked Show don’t tell.   Hrmf! I know. I know exactly what you’re thinking with #2. Heard that before? Me ...